Israelis, Palestinians agree to cease-fire

Islamic Jihad and Hamas back accord, says Abbas' office

November 26, 2006|By Richard Boudreaux Los Angeles Times and Information from The New York Times was used in this report.

JERUSALEM — Israel and the Palestinians agreed to halt hostilities in the Gaza Strip today, reinstating an often-broken cease-fire that could lead to the first talks between their leaders since June.

The accord, struck during a telephone call late Saturday from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, was to take effect at 6 a.m. today (11 p.m. Saturday EST).

If the agreement holds, it would end five months of punishing Israeli military incursions into Gaza as well as the daily firing of rockets by Palestinian militants at cities and towns in Israel. It could also create momentum toward a resumption of peace talks that collapsed six years ago.

An Israeli government spokeswoman, Miri Eisen, said the cease-fire accord also includes a halt to Palestinian suicide attacks in or from Gaza and a cessation of weapons smuggling into Gaza from Egypt.

Israel, the spokeswoman said, would start withdrawing its troops from Gaza, a process she said could be finished by the end of the day.

Nabil Abu Rdeneh, a spokesman for Abbas, said all Palestinian armed factions had signed an agreement to "cease military activities from Gaza," restoring a truce reached in Egypt in February 2005.

Among the groups committed to the accord, he said, was Islamic Jihad, which had previously rejected any cease-fire with Israel, and Hamas, which governs the Palestinian Authority and has refused to recognize Israel.

The Bush administration, eager to revive talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, welcomed the announcement as "a positive step forward," White House spokesman Alex Conant said. "We hope it leads to less violence for the Israeli and Palestinian people."

The cease-fire was a major achievement for Abbas, who had been pressing Palestinian militant groups for months. He retained the presidency after his more moderate Fatah Party lost control of the government to Hamas last March and has criticized Hamas' role in escalating the conflict with Israel.

Since the summer, Abbas said last week, Palestinians in Gaza have been "victims of a barbaric Israeli offensive that has left more than 400 dead and 1,500 wounded while thousands of homes have been destroyed." But he added: "All that on the pretext of homemade rocket fire, and unfortunately we are giving them such a pretext."

Since Israel unilaterally withdrew its military outposts and settlers from the coastal territory in September last year, at least 1,100 crude Kassam rockets have been fired from Gaza, killing two Israeli civilians, both in the past 12 days.

Israeli forces returned to Gaza in late June after militants from several Palestinian groups, including Hamas, captured Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit in a cross-border raid. The Israelis have made frequent and increasingly large incursions into Gaza since then, trying without success to halt the rocket attacks. Three Israeli soldiers have died in the fighting.

Rejecting international criticism of the offensive, which has left scores of Palestinian civilians dead, Olmert had said this month that the Israeli offensive would continue until the rocket fire was significantly diminished.

In fighting Saturday, Israeli forces killed four Palestinian fighters and wounded at least six other people, including an unarmed 12-year-old boy. The Palestinian deaths also included a Hamas militant who died in an Israeli airstrike in the evening, Palestinian security officials told The New York Times.

The cease-fire accord came a day after Israel rejected an offer by Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya of Hamas to stop the rockets in return for a halt in Israeli military operations in both the West Bank and Gaza.

"Abbas then came back with an offer of a full cease-fire, in exchange for our stopping in Gaza only, and Olmert agreed," said Eisen, the Israeli spokeswoman.

Haniya met in Gaza with several Palestinian factions involved in firing rockets into Israel, and they said they would abide by the cease-fire.

Israeli-Palestinian cease-fires break down frequently, and it appeared early this morning there was some uncertainty over the terms of this one.

One party to the accord, the Popular Resistance Committees, said it still expected Israel to stop military operations in the West Bank as well. Asked whether such operations could provoke more rockets from Gaza, a spokesman for the group, Abu Abir, told the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz that Israel must first pull out of Gaza.

Israeli officials said they were worried that Hamas would use the cease-fire to build up its weapons stockpile by means of continued smuggling through tunnels under the border from Egypt. Eisen acknowledged that it would be difficult for Israel, without troops in Gaza, to monitor the border to ensure compliance with that element of the cease-fire.

Information from The New York Times was used in this report.

The Los Angeles Times is a Tribune Co. newspaper.

Cease-fire details

THE PALESTINIANS PROPOSED: An end to frequent Palestinian rocket fire into Israel, suicide bombings inside Gaza against Israeli soldiers and the digging of tunnels used for smuggling money and weapons into the Gaza Strip from neighboring Egypt.

ISRAEL PROPOSED: An end to military operations in Gaza effective 6 a.m. today (11 p.m. EST Saturday). Israeli forces would begin withdrawing soon after from northern Gaza if the terms of the truce hold.